


Let the Revolution Take Its Toll

by gamerfic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Elf Rebellion, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Past Female Lavellan/Solas, Post-Trespasser, Revolutionaries, Slavery, Tevinter Imperium, non-warden Tabris
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/pseuds/gamerfic
Summary: Fen'Harel is coming to break every chain.





	Let the Revolution Take Its Toll

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sansbanshees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansbanshees/gifts).



The slave markets of Vyrantium are burning. Columns of thick black smoke spiral up into the flame-reddened sky as flakes of glowing ash drift gently downward. Everything reeks of fire and burnt flesh and fear. The afternoon rings with the deafening roar of the blaze and the desperate screams of trapped Tevinter slavers. Solas listens dispassionately to their dying pleas for mercy as he casually weaves tendrils of illusion around the retreating elven slaves, hiding them as they flee their masters. He knows he shouldn't have attacked them openly in a major city. His strategy calls for observing from a distance and gradually gathering his army, not lashing out impulsively. But the sight of the People's descendants in chains, the sounds of parents and children sobbing as the overseer separated them on the auction block, was more than he could bear. _Even if they are not the People I knew, no one should suffer in this way._ The Wolf inside him threw itself against the bars of its cage, slavering and growling to be let out, and in a moment of weakness he let it slip. This is the inevitable result of his self-indulgence.

Hundreds of enslaved elves have already escaped, borne away into the warren of the city streets to vanish on a swelling tide of Solas's magic. Others were not so lucky. Just ahead, two soporati are catching up to one straggling young elven woman. She kicks one of her assailants hard in the crotch before he can grab her, and Solas smirks ever so slightly as the man crumples. But she can't evade the second soporati, who seizes her from behind. Something in the way she keeps struggling and screaming even as her captor drags her away, in the way she doesn't yield even when the fight is plainly futile, pricks at Solas's conscience. It's trivially easy for him to probe the attacker's body with a spell, find the arteries supplying blood to his brain, and casually pinch them shut. The soporati crumples, dead before he hits the ground.

The elven woman fights free of the dying man's convulsing arms and resourcefully snatches his dagger from his limp palm. But the delay it causes almost costs her dearly. The first soporati, recovering from the blow she dealt him, reaches out and grabs her ankle. She tumbles to the ground. As the slaver looms over her, growling something threatening and wholly unimaginative in Tevene, the woman doesn't panic. She strikes upward with the dagger, driving it beneath his ribs and into his heart. He collapses beside his companion.

She looks directly at Solas as she's pulling the dagger out, and he realizes with a start that he has neglected to make himself invisible. He hadn't expected to linger here. She regards him calmly, taking in his staff and his ostentatious armor. Her gaze flickers toward the man he killed. "Did you do that?" she asks in the common tongue, Fereldan-accented. _I haven't heard that dialect in a long time. She is far from home._

There is no sense in lying. "Yes."

"Why?" Even here and now, surrounded by fire and death, she wants to understand. _I used to know someone else who wanted that, too._

"Because Fen'Harel is coming to break every chain." It's a practiced and automatic response - the words he's seeding across Tevinter, preparing the land for the ultimate harvest of his army.

Judging by the glint of recognition in her eyes, she's heard them before. "You side with him?"

"Yes."

"He is real?"

"Very."

She nods once, sharply, her mind made up. "Then I'm coming with you. I want what he wants."

For a moment he is tempted to simply blink himself away from here, to avoid encumbering himself with another fragile mortal who will never truly understand what he does or why. Then he thinks, _Spreading my own legend through daring acts will not be enough by itself. I must develop an army to command and a strategy to give to them. But first, I need true believers who can lead cells of resistance to act on my orders. This woman is an excellent candidate. She does not need to be a close companion. But I may well need her to trust me enough to carry out my will when I command her._

From somewhere in the smoke he hears a commotion - the city watch, coming to extinguish the blaze and round up any unfortunate slaves they can find. Running from them is futile. He extends his open palm to the elven woman. "Do you trust me?"

"No," she says flatly, but she takes his hand. "But I want to follow you anyway."

He doesn't know how to respond. He pulls her closer to him as he gathers his magic for the Fade step that will carry them both away from here. "What is your name?" he asks.

"Call me Tabris. Who are you?"

 _Fen'Harel,_ he wants to say, but that would be a lie. He doesn't want to become nothing more than an avatar of the myth he's making. When he lived such a reality before, he found it lacking. So as the spell builds toward completion he says, "My name is Solas," and then they are gone.

* * *

He takes her to a safehouse in the Vyrantium slums, a collapsing tenement nestled among impoverished soporati too concerned with the particulars of their own day-to-day survival to spend any time thinking about the elves in their midst. It would be much less risky to leave the city entirely and start over somewhere else where he hasn't cost the local altus and laetans countless lives and a fortune in slaves and property. But he wants to find out what became of the elves he freed, to see if they can be converted into allies and assets. He explains as much to Tabris, unsure of why he finds it important to justify himself to her, and she does not argue against him. Then again, she may be too physically weak to object to anything just yet.

No one survives slavery without being strong and healthy, very lucky, or both. Tabris is no exception, but even she has her limits. As soon as she accepts the reality of her safety, her body seems to shut down, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to rest and recuperate. For nearly a week she does little beyond sleeping deeply and eating heartily from the provisions he has stockpiled. She puts on badly needed weight, adding softness to the sharp bones and sinews of her muscular frame, and lessens the dark shadows under her eyes. He does not push her to do anything more. Having a sickly lieutenant is worse than having no lieutenant at all.

It takes days for her to speak to him at all. As they're sharing a meal of thin and salty soup, the clear steady sound of her voice startles him. "Did you come here from the Circle?"

"No," he says. "I am what some would call an apostate."

"Oh. I didn't know apostates really existed. I thought they were just stories the hahren told to scare us."

Her peculiar use of the Elvhen word, combined with her lack of _vallaslin,_ makes her history evident. "And what about you? Did you come here from an alienage?"

"Yes. In Denerim. But it doesn't really matter. In the alienages, in the Circle, in Tevinter - elves are someone's slave wherever you go."

"The Dalish would say otherwise." Solas can't say what possessed him to mention the Dalish at all. Perhaps he's still thinking of the last elven woman he spoke to in this way - remembering the cold winds that blew through Haven and later through Skyhold, and the tattoos on her face, and the taste of her lips when he finally gave in to his own weakness.

Tabris scowls. " _Fuck_ the Dalish," she says emphatically.

He wonders what could possibly have provoked such an intense reaction, but he knows he shouldn't try to indulge his curiosity now. Instead, he clears his throat awkwardly. "Be that as it may, you _are_ free now to do as you please. I will continue to help you if I can, but only if you want to stay here. It was never my intention to coerce you to do anything. Now that you are healthier, what do you want to do?"

She thinks for a moment, then says, "I want to come with you to talk to the other elves you freed. Maybe I can convince them to join Fen'Harel's cause."

Despite what she told him at the slave markets, he's a bit surprised she wants to follow through with her original plan. He's seen more than one elf, newly drunk on the promise of freedom, go back on their passionate oaths once they've had a taste of real safety. "You have no obligation to me. You are free to go at any time."

"And let others fight without me?" She shakes her head. "I don't want you to free my people for me. I want my people to find the power to free themselves."

 _Intriguing. This may be the beginning of something quite worthwhile._ "Very well," he says. "You may stay here for as long as you like. Perhaps you can help me after all."

And indeed she does. For all that Solas has rescued numerous elves from slavery, he has never quite known what to do with them once they are free. It was one thing to spur the citizens of Elvhenan to action, for he knew the tyranny of the Evanuris as well as they did and found it easy to persuade them with eloquent speeches and demonstrations of his strength. He does not understand how to motivate these pale shadows of the People - perhaps because, even after everything he's seen and done, a small voice inside him still whispers, _none of them are real._

It's different for Tabris. She has never known anything but his dim and shattered world. Its people are her only People, limited and ignorant as they are. She has no difficulty in seeing them as real because to her, they _are_ real. And when they balk at the things he proposes, she knows just what to say to sway them. Once he had thought the people of this age were impossible to persuade. Now he wonders if he simply never knew the right words.

* * *

But it doesn't always go as planned. In one rundown tenement half-slumping into the river, they find nearly two dozen elves of all ages huddled in terror, menaced by slave catchers and uncertain of their next move. An elderly woman recognizes Tabris, her dark eyes lighting up when she and Solas walk into the room. "Kallian," she says warmly, giving Tabris a tight hug which Tabris awkwardly returns. "Thank the Maker you survived. I never got to tell you...I'm so sorry about what happened to your father."

"That was a long time ago," says Tabris, looking even more uncomfortable.

Before the woman can say more (and before Solas can ask what they're talking about), a black-haired elf leaning in the doorway speaks. He's young, barely out of adolescence, and his tone is harsh and impatient. "You and your friend should leave before I throw you out. I've heard about what you're doing, creeping around trying to tell us we should revolt in Fen'Harel's name. You'll bring the whole Magisterium down on us with that kind of talk."

Tabris regards the young man calmly. She's clearly heard these objections before. "I remember you from my old master's household. Darius, right?" He nods. "Then you'll know the answer to this question. How many humans lived in our master's household?"

"Four," says Darius sullenly. "The master and his wife and the children."

"And how many slaves did those four humans own?"

"I don't see the point of this."

"Humor me. How many?"

Darius is silent for a minute, searching his memory, adding numbers in his mind. "Seven in the main house," he said at last. "Four at the summer house year-round with the master's uncle. And at least a dozen at the oyster farm before he sold it."

"So more than twice as many elves as humans, in the master's house alone. Living beside them. Knowing all their secrets and their daily routines. And he didn't own many slaves at all by Vyrantium standards." Tabris is pacing the creaky rotten floorboards, her voice rising passionately as she continues. "And how many more slaves grew the food our masters bought? Sewed their clothes? Built those big houses? Served food and drink at the parties they attended? Reared the horses and drove the carriages that brought them there? Cleaned up when they were done with it all?" Darius looked at the floor. "We outnumber them, Darius. We always have and we always will. What do you think would happen to their precious high society if we simply stopped doing as they command? Or if we used the knowledge we've gained of them against them? How long do you think they can survive without us?"

"They are mages," the old woman says flatly. "We are not."

"We have Fen'Harel on our side," says Tabris, and a chill runs down Solas's spine despite the sweltering heat of the room. "They don't."

"Fen'Harel is a story the Vints use to scare their brats," says Darius.

"Really, Darius? When I tell you Fen'Harel is coming to break every chain, do you think I really mean a god will come down and take all our worries away? Of course not. I mean we have a power the Vints will never possess." She's standing toe to toe with Darius now, staring into his eyes as he shrinks away from her. "They are powerful, yes. But they're not omnipotent. How many elves, fighting as if their lives depended upon it, do you think a single magister could fend off before they were overcome? Five? A dozen? Fifty? It doesn't matter. _There are more of us._ We can defeat them if we all refuse as one. But we _all_ must join the fight or it won't work."

"Not everyone will survive that," the old woman points out.

"You're right," says Tabris. "Some of us will die. So you'll have to ask yourself if staying hidden is worth you and all your descendants living like this forever."

Darius's mouth twists in a sour frown. "Dream of a revolution all you want. You won't be the first or the last, but you'll die like all the ones before and after you. When the slave catchers cut you down, I won't be there to see it."

"Then what _do_ you plan to do?" Tabris demands. "None of us can stay here forever. Too many humans can recognize us. Eventually, we'll be found out."

"We're going to find the Dalish," Darius says proudly. "We know they're out there somewhere. As soon as we can gather enough supplies, we're leaving the city and going east to look for them in the Arlathan Forest. If we can track them down, surely they will help their elven siblings."

"Then you're a fool," Tabris says, her face contorted with rage. "The Dalish won't help you - but you won't believe that, will you?" She pushes past him through the doorway, and Solas trails along behind her. "Let me out of here. I know where I'm not wanted."

* * *

Solas can sense the tension and frustration in Tabris's posture as they slink away from the tenement. "We need to do something about the slave catchers or no one is ever going to join us," she says when they've returned to their safehouse.

"We do," he says, pensive. He can't believe he didn't see it before. It's no wonder his attempts at recruitment have so often failed. Many freed slaves are too afraid of being recaptured to risk fighting their former masters - and justifiably so. Shame tugs at him as he realizes how badly he's misjudged the situation. _I acted to help others without thinking of all the consequences for those I wanted to help, as I have so many times before. Tabris understood as much long before I did. Perhaps I should listen to her._

Something else is sticking in his mind. "May I ask you a question?"

He's tried to keep his tone light and non-threatening, but Tabris still sounds defensive when she responds. "Why?"

 _Because I want to understand you and I don't understand why,_ he thinks but does not say. "You call yourself my ally, yet I barely know you. I want to understand what led you to this path."

"Fine. You can ask. I might not answer."

"The people in the tenement said they knew you. They said you used to share a master."

"We did, for many years. I suppose he was decent enough, as slave-owning bastards go. He didn't beat us or treat us cruelly."

"And yet he still owned you."

"Exactly." Tabris's face is stony and grim. "And eventually, he died. He could have freed us all upon his death. It's what a kind man would have done. But he was not so kind, in the end. He willed us to his children instead."

What Tabris leaves unsaid speaks volumes. "I take it they were unlike their father?"

"Yes."

Solas sees no reason to belabor the point, or ask for the details of how she came to the auction block. Besides, there's another part of her story he wants to explore. He makes his voice as tender as he can, knowing he broaches a very sensitive subject. "The woman we spoke to mentioned your father. Was he enslaved along with you?"

"Yes."

"What became of him?"

She takes a deep breath as if considering how much to tell him. "He died."

Solas had assumed as much. "I'm sorry."

Tabris doesn't acknowledge his sympathy. Now that she's decided to explain herself, nothing he says or does can stop the words from pouring out of her. "My father and I were brought over from Denerim together. All he ever wanted was to protect me. He never talked back, never complained, never did anything to anger the master. But when the sweating sickness came, I was young and strong and he was not. There was nothing anyone could do."

"I'm sorry," Solas says again, uselessly. "Was he the one who told you not to count on the Dalish to save you?"

She laughs, a harsh and joyless sound. "He didn't need to tell me. We saw it for ourselves."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure where you're from...What have you heard about the Hero of Ferelden?"

"My home is far from here, but I know of whom you speak. She was a Dalish elf, was she not?"

"Yes. My father and I met her once."

"Really? Where?"

"In Denerim, just after we were first captured. After some fucking Vint decided the alienage was a good place for taking slaves, but before we'd been sold. We were in the pens, waiting to be taken across the sea. And then she came. We thought she was there to rescue us. But the Hero of Ferelden...she looked her fellow elves in the eye, and then she _bargained_ with him. For a hundred gold coins, he gave her some pointless fucking letter and she looked the other way while he took us to Tevinter."

Solas has no idea what to say. He's heard the accolades directed toward the Hero of Ferelden and the glorious sacrifice she made when she killed the Archdemon Urthemiel, witnessed the dreaming echoes of her legendary deeds all throughout the Fade. The adoring public who still claim her as their savior would never imagine her capable of doing such a thing. But Solas has lived too long, seen too much, _done_ too much to believe anyone is entirely noble and innocent. Impulsively, he rests his hand on her shoulder. She does not pull away.

"The Dalish are arrogant and heartless," says Tabris. "They think only of themselves and their 'true path.' Other elves aren't real to them, because we don't follow the old ways like they do. As if any of us had a choice!"

"There's nothing especially true about the path the Dalish follow."

"I know, it's just...I was more than ready to see the, well, the _elven-ness_ in her, even if we were brought up differently. I wish she had been able to see it in me."

"You did nothing wrong," he says softly. He begins to feel awkward about the placement of his hand and takes it away. "I'm glad you survived and kept on fighting."

"So am I." She blinks rapidly as if to clear away unshed tears, and her face turns to stone again. "Come on. We have a lot of work to do."

* * *

Tevinter slave catchers can always recognize a fugitive. A freed elf, especially one recently released, may move nervously and cautiously through the streets of the city, always holding their citizenship documents close at hand in preparation for the inevitable demands to produce them. But they do not fear to travel openly at all hours of the day and night, to carry and spend money, to converse with whomever they please. Escaped slaves do none of those things. They keep to the shadows, bartering and trading in the black and grey markets, always looking for a chance to make a life far away from any place they might be recognized.

Tabris has every quality of a fugitive. She comes out at night, huddling beneath a heavy hood despite the the hot, sticky haze hanging over Vyrantium's slums. She scrupulously follows the law whenever possible, doing everything she can to avoid notice. When she must transgress society's rules to survive, displaying false papers or distributing smuggled goods to earn a meager living or shopping at unlicensed merchants, she does so hastily and surreptitiously. For many fugitives, such precautions will serve them for years or decades, long enough to live out their days in a tenuous freedom still far preferable to servitude. Yet despite the care she's taken, on this particular night she has not escaped the watchful eye of one enterprising hunter.

She's almost halfway home by the time she realizes she's being followed. She knows enough not to look over her shoulder at her pursuer; she just pulls her hood tighter around her face and begins to hurry. She alters her route, changing directions rapidly and randomly, taking shortcuts, going in circles. The slave catcher matches her, turn for turn. He'll do this all night if he has to.

Exhaustion and fear are getting the better of her. She starts to make mistakes. The slave catcher grins when she veers down a narrow passageway that he knows will terminate in a blind, dead-end alley. When she gets to the end, she'll have no way out. With luck, she'll accept she's been bested and go quietly, and he'll turn her in for a hefty bounty. And if she doesn't...well, an obstinate slave who needs to be taught manners often offers her own sort of appeal.

Tabris knows what's happening. As the slave catcher comes to the end of the alley he finds her crouching amidst the loose cobblestones, her eyes rapidly scanning her surroundings for a way out that doesn't exist. He slips a length of rope free from his belt and grabs her. His hands slide away from her body, repelled by a shimmering blue barrier. "What the - ?"

A low rumble from behind him drowns out his words. The slave catcher spins around to gawk at the massive wall of ice, as tall as the surrounding buildings, that has sprung up from nowhere to block the only exit. Slowly he turns back to Tabris to find her standing confident and tall, still shrouded in magic, staring him down with fire and vindication in her gaze.

From his perch atop a neighboring tenement, Solas lowers his hand and lets magic spill forth from the Fade.

For the span of perhaps a dozen heartbeats, the alley becomes a roaring inferno of bright green flame. Then, just as quickly as the fire appeared, it vanishes. The wall of ice is gone too, sublimated into steam by the force of Solas's spell. Nothing remains in the alley except the charred corpse of the slave catcher, his blackened body unidentifiable and curling in on itself - and Tabris, untouched thanks to the barrier, standing unmoved in the middle of it all.

Solas swoops down from the rooftop and lands in front of Tabris. She's covering her mouth with both hands to muffle her laughter, and her eyes are sparkling with delight. She pulls her hands away, revealing a mirthful grin, and whispers, "It worked."

"It did," Solas says, his own smile growing. Together they'd devised this strategy as a way to eliminate the slave catchers plaguing the freed elves. The safer they can make their potential allies, Solas reasons, the more likely they are to join the revolution. Initially it had been all Tabris's idea. Alone, Solas would never have proposed using her as bait for a trap, or placing her in a situation where she would need to rely fully on his magic for her own safety and survival. Even though he knows he is more than powerful enough to ensure no harm will come to her, it is a matter of trust, of not demanding something from her he hasn't first earned through his own merits. Yet Tabris insisted, arguing so persuasively for her own ideas that he'd been unable to come up with any reason to deny her. Now that they've proven the plan's effectiveness, they can use it again and again. Vyrantium will become safer for free elves. Fen'Harel's rebellion will grow.

Tabris throws her hood back, exhilarated, and steps closer to Solas. She's breathing heavily as she takes his hands in hers. All at once she's kissing him, fiercely and violently, an action utterly unexpected and yet not at all unwelcome. He kisses her back, his tongue darting into her mouth, his hands tangling in her hair. He wonders what it all means. He wonders why he doesn't care.

There's a sound at the mouth of the alley - a neighbor, perhaps, drawn by the acrid stink of the smoke from the burned body - and Solas pulls away. Tabris hasn't heard it and leans in to begin again. He rests his fingers against her parted lips. "It isn't safe," he murmurs, and he doesn't know if he means the kiss, the location, or both.

"Then take us away," she whispers, and presses the length of her body against his. A shock runs through him, and he knows she must feel every inch of his arousal. Gathering up the shards of his fractured concentration, he summons his power and blinks them out of the alley.

They reappear in his pitch-dark bedroom in the safehouse. He waves a finger and ignites the candle on the bedside table. In the time it takes to cast that simple spell she has shed her cloak and is already working on the shirt and trousers beneath it. Drawing her back into his arms and kissing her again only serves to redirect her attention to his own clothing. Her lips and hands roam across his neck, the tips of his ears, his chest, his stomach. Then she is kneeling naked before him, unfastening his belt buckle. "Tabris," he manages to say. "You don't have to do this."

She levels a lust-darkened gaze at him. "I know. But I want to - if you do."

 _"Yes,"_ he breathes, the word tumbling out of him, and then she takes him in her mouth.

After the first explosive rush of sensation, Solas can't keep himself from remembering Inquisitor Lavellan, who did this to him so many times before but never will again. But soon the memory fades away and he is left with only Tabris engulfing him, focused on nothing but giving and receiving pleasure. He finds it easier than he expected to empty his mind and do the same. Too soon he feels his peak approaching and knows she will not hesitate to bring him there. He guides her head gently away from him. "Something wrong?" she asks, licking her lips.

"No," he says, and pauses as he determines how best to phrase his own desires. "You deserve joy. Let me give it to you too."

Tabris understands. Smiling, she rises and crosses to the bed. "Then do it," she says, and spreads herself open for him.

Now it's his turn to kneel between her parted thighs and bend his face to his work. He would have gladly stayed there for the rest of the night, but Tabris withdraws after she's arched and trembled through her first orgasm. She sits up and kisses him again, and he tastes himself on her lips. "I want you inside me," she says.

Solas can't believe what he's hearing. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Her hand closes around him, tugging and stroking him to even greater stiffness, and he ruts uncontrollably into her fist. "But don't you dare get me with child."

"My magic will prevent that," he gasps.

"Good."

Instinct overwhelms him. He takes her by the hips and flips her over to her hands and knees on the mattress. "I am not sure I can be gentle."

"I don't want you to be." She rolls her hips against him. "Fuck me, Solas."

They both cry out when he sheaths himself in her, and again as he starts up a hard and steady rhythm, slamming into her from behind. "I am sorry," he grunts, "I won't last long."

Tabris's only reply is a long, low moan.

When he feels her clenching and tensing around him as she comes a second time, it's too much. He spills himself inside her, shuddering and groaning, then collapses in utter satiation, waiting for his pounding heart to slow down. He opens his eyes when he feels the bed frame shifting under her weight as she sits up. "What are you doing?"

"Going back to my room," she says matter-of-factly, groping around for her discarded clothes.

He'd known she never intended this liaison as more than a casual celebration of their success, but something in him still resists parting from her so abruptly. "There's no need. You are more than welcome to stay."

She hesitates, considering. He could reach out and read her thoughts as easily as reading a scroll, but despite his curiosity he refuses to violate her mind. So he'll never know why she chooses to climb in beside him and blows out the candle. It takes both of them a long time to fall asleep, unaccustomed as they are to the nearness of the other's body, but Solas doesn't mind. For the first time in a long time, he finds himself content to exist nowhere but now.

* * *

So it goes, day after day, week after week, month after month. They seek allies by day and kill slave catchers by night, and little by little the mood in Vyrantium changes. Everyone, from soporati to magisters, is talking about the dozens of slave catchers who have died mysteriously by magic while trying to recapture a fugitive. Some catchers are holding out for exorbitant pay or turning down contracts altogether, saying the risk isn't worth the reward.

Naturally, this leads to more slaves escaping. Their masters cannot entirely control the flow of rumors telling them this might be their best chance to claim their freedom. They slip away unnoticed from farms and manor houses and fishing boats, bringing with them their children and their infirm parents and their forbidden lovers. Many set out on the Imperial Highway or vanish into the countryside to seek their fortune elsewhere, as is their right. But others, for their own reasons, stay and fight.

Both together and separately, Solas and Tabris find these willing fugitives and instruct them in the theory and practice of Fen'Harel's rebellion. Tabris reminds them of the strength of their numbers, and urges them to spread the message of revolt to everyone they know, especially those elves who remain enslaved. Solas offers suggestions for how elves both free and enslaved can throw sand in the gears of Tevinter's vicious system. Always they counsel caution: Distribute information on a need-to-know basis. Use false names, if you can. Be diligent with your vetting and sparing with your trust; more than one previous uprising came to a premature end thanks to a spy no one suspected. They remind their allies that gathering in small cells is safer and more effective than assembling everyone regularly in one group. A large, centralized movement is too easily compromised. Isolated pockets of resistance, believing in the same ideals but acting independently and with limited coordination, are much harder to eradicate. "A pebble may be small," Solas often reminds the leaders of new cells, "but dozens of them dropped on the same side of a scale will shift its balance all the same."

And it's working. At first they can identify, or at least guess at, the source of every defaced statue, every deliberately spoiled shipment of perishable goods, every riot instigated in a market. These first acts of sedition plainly stem from their friends and neighbors. But before long, the sources of the nascent revolt become more difficult to trace. Two dozen supposedly contented enslaved field workers rise up without warning and bludgeon their owner and his wife to death with farming implements before escaping in a stolen boat, leaving the couple's terrified children alive to tell the tale. Several brave young elves recently escaped from a plantation steal a military frigate and suicidally scuttle it in the harbor channel, blocking entrance to the port for weeks until the wreck can be cleared. Someone sets fire to the offices of a prominent trading company, destroying decades' worth of records and making it all but impossible for many masters to prove their ownership of any fugitives they might recapture. The same words appear at the site of each blow against the regime, painted on walls or carved into stones or breathed out from the lips of dying revolutionaries: "Fen'Harel is coming to break every chain."

Solas supports the uprising with his magic whenever, wherever, and however he can. He dares not show himself openly yet, nor display his power as dramatically as he did on the night he met Tabris. Nor will he stoop to changing minds through brute force - he will never sacrifice his belief in every being's inherent freedom of thought, no matter what other cherished ideals he may betray in the name of his goal. But he can work from the shadows, clouding the minds of their adversaries, healing the sick and wounded, concealing rebels and refugees alike with finely woven veils of enchantment. When he sleeps, he enters the Fade to rally his spirit friends there, calling in every favor he's owed to send powerful spirits of confusion and doubt and weakness and misfortune to plague the souls of Vyrantium's magisters. The elves who benefit from his spells never find out what he did; rather, they believe themselves to have been exceptionally lucky. No one but Tabris knows the truth of what he can do, and even she doesn't know the half of it. He dares not trust anyone else like he trusts her.

Solas doesn't want to admit it at first, but Tabris has become all but indispensable to him. When he watches her recruit new elves, he sees why he had so little success before he met her. No matter what he says or does, he will never have suffered under the yoke of Tevinter the way Tabris did. No matter how much he reads and studies or how many dreams he sifts through in the Fade, he will never carry the memory of enslavement to the magisters in his body and soul. Tabris does. Alone, he can free slaves, feed and clothe them, help them on their way to safety, and plant the seeds of resistance in their mind - but only Tabris can make them believe in Fen'Harel's rebellion. Only she can convince them, down to their bones, that the Dread Wolf truly _is_ coming to break every chain. She believes in him more fervently than he believes in himself.

But Tabris relies upon him as well. The dangers of being the face of an underground movement are myriad and unending. They both know she would already have died a dozen times over if he hadn't been there to eliminate city watchmen, hide her from her enemies, and teleport her out of danger. She projects a strong and confident persona to the world, never expressing doubt or fear where others might see it. While her faith in the necessity of the revolution never wavers where Solas can see it either, her faith in herself is another matter. Although she is free, she is all too conscious of how her freedom could still be stripped from her at any moment. The trauma of her enslavement remains as a vicious scar in her psyche. Solas will never be able to cure it. But he can soothe her nightmares when they come, and keep their little home safe with wards and illusions, and make sure she knows he will do all he can to protect her from anyone who would return her to bondage again.

Day in and day out they fight at each other's side. Solas cannot remember the last time his life merged with another's so completely. So it comes as little surprise to him when their physical relationship also continues. After their first night together, they never spend another in separate beds again. The closeness and safety of shared sleep inevitably leads to greater levels of comfort with each other, and neither one of them hesitates to come to the other to fulfill the desires of their bodies. Their initial awkwardness gradually gives way to casual nudity, to shared baths, to sensual massages, to quick hard fucks up against the wall of a darkened alley, to gentle languid lovemaking in the middle of the night when neither of them can rest easily. Tabris never says or does anything to suggest she sees their sexual relationship as anything more than a mutually beneficial extension of their alliance. He tells himself he wants nothing else from her. But as the months wear on he finds it more and more challenging to convince himself that he doesn't think of her as something more than just a comrade in arms.

Eventually he lets it slip. They've gotten into bed one day to chase away the chill of an autumn cold snap, and one thing has led to another. He brings her off rapidly with his fingers as he embraces her from behind, enjoying the ease of the predictable patterns granted by his now-considerable experience as her lover. But then she climbs on top of him and rides him as she pins him down by his wrists, stopping and starting, altering speed and angle and depth and friction, delaying his orgasm almost to the point of madness as she fucks him relentlessly into the mattress. They both know he could overpower her at any time and finish however he wishes, but he chooses to let her prolong their coupling as she sees fit. When she finally takes up the slow deliberate rhythm that will end him and he feels his shattering climax building, he cannot bear it any longer. _"Ar lath ma,"_ he sobs as he spends violently inside her, _"ar lath ma, vhenan…"_ In the moment he is too lost in what she's given him to feel any shame at his confession.

Tabris asks about it, of course, as they're lying together in their post-coital daze. "Those elf words you said. What did they mean?"

 _Most city elves don't speak Elvhen,_ Solas remembers, and he feels strangely relieved. "An Elvhen profanity. Nothing more."

She grins. "I like it when I make you swear. I hope I can keep doing it." She kisses the corner of his lips and so help him, his desire for her stirs again whether he wants it to or not. He trails his mouth along her body, working his way lower and lower, until the rest of the day is happily wasted in giving and taking pleasure from one another.

He wonders, later on, if he truly does love her, or if this feeling is nothing more than an echo of the love he felt for Inquisitor Lavellan. The parallels between them are impossible to ignore: a young elven woman, ignorant of her true heritage, thrust into a fight much larger than herself, and relying on Solas for guidance and support without knowing his true identity. But their similarities end there. Lavellan had a deep-seated curiosity and a philosophical bent; she lived for debate and verbal sparring, and was as happy to listen to him ramble on about things he'd seen in the Fade as she was to make love to him. Tabris lacks these qualities. She is always clear and direct, uninterested in what-ifs and hypotheticals - a creature of action and not thought, of the present rather than the past or future.

Moreover, Tabris shows little interest in who Solas was before they met, or the things he might have done in the past. (Sometimes he wondered if Lavellan ever really cared about anything else.) In fact, they have never spoken extensively of their histories beyond the most basic outlines. He knows he is leaving much more unsaid than she - but she knows it too, and she doesn't care. It's why, he realizes, he _can_ permit himself to love her. He needed to end things with Lavellan because she wanted a commitment he could never fully give. He had deceived her from the start - not about the depth of his feelings for her, but about his true self and his goals. Now that she has seen the truth of him, she must oppose him. It's different with Tabris. He knows that at any moment he could reveal his true nature and she would still go on wanting the same things from him - his aid in the revolution, and his magic at her side in a fight against slavers, and his body joining again and again with hers in the secret dark of the safehouse.

Yet this, too, is temporary. A successful elf rebellion in Tevinter, and the strong and loyal army Solas hopes will result from it, is just one step upon the path to his real goal. And when the appointed day comes and he finally tears down the Veil between the worlds, Tabris will be erased, plunged into oblivion as surely as everyone else in this pale dream of an existence. Until then, he resolves to live in the moment, like she does, to appreciate the time he has with her and the small measure of happiness they can give to each other. He is certain that before long, the temporary stability they share will all be swept away.

* * *

But when the shift in their fortunes comes, Solas isn't prepared. One evening, they're walking back together from the night market by the harbor when he senses someone else's magic tugging at his consciousness. He grabs Tabris by the wrist to stop her and pulls her into the doorway of an abandoned storefront as he scans their surroundings for trouble. Just in time he senses the three magisters closing in on them from opposite directions, trapping them in this small, isolated plaza. _So. At last they've decided to take us seriously._ Briefly he wonders who betrayed them - Darius, or someone else they'd never suspect? Or is this just the delayed consequence of his ill-considered attack on the slave markets all those months ago? - but he knows it doesn't matter. The curse of every rebel leader is that it only takes one instant of weakness from one traitor to bring your oppressors down on you. Now that the moment of confrontation has arrived, all he can do is make sure he survives it.

He raises a protective barrier in front of the doorframe just before the magisters cast their first spells. It's the usual unimaginative sorcery he's come to expect from the practitioners of this age, fireballs and lightning bolts and rays of cold. His wards easily hold fast against it - for now. He isn't invulnerable. The same strength in numbers that the elves can use against their masters can also be used by lesser mages against him.

Solas's best option is to avoid a confrontation by simply being elsewhere. He pulls Tabris close to him and tries to blink them away from the confines of the plaza - but his Fade step stutters, held back by a counterspell, and deposits them in the center of the open ground. He curses under his breath in Elvhen. _Damn their ingenuity! They've studied my capabilities._ They have no choice but to make their stand. His gaze flickers toward Tabris. "Get ready to fight," he murmurs, and she nods in understanding.

She throws her cloak to the ground. Two daggers, hidden beneath its heavy fabric, spring into her hands. Solas casts a barrier again, this one hugging her as tightly as armor, then wreaths himself in raw energy that lights up the night in blue and green. The nearest magister steps closer to Tabris and conjures a sword of white light in his outstretched fist. Screaming, Tabris launches herself at him.

Solas looks away. Though he fears for her safety as always, he can't afford to watch. He needs to handle the other magisters first. He picks them out of the darkness easily - one on a rooftop, one leaning out of the half-open shutters of a second-story window - and flicks his wrist at them. Bonds of pure force encircle them both, crushing and immobilizing them as gravity bears down on them with many times its normal weight. It will take them some time to escape.

He returns his attention to Tabris. For the moment, she's holding her own against the magister and his spirit blade, but he knows it won't last. He has resources in battle she cannot hope to draw on. Luckily, Solas has them too. He pours power into her, temporarily increasing her strength and speed and resilience, and the magister's eyes widen as the tide begins to turn.

A loud and sickening crack comes from nearby. Solas notes that the magister in the window has fallen to the street below and is presently writhing on the cobblestones, still trapped within the grip of his spell. The one on the roof has done better for herself. He watches as she dispels the remnants of his attack and swoops down to ground level to glare at him from across the plaza. Calmly and self-assuredly, she raises her staff and casts. He analyzes the enchantment as it creeps toward him and nearly laughs out loud when he realizes what it is. Instead, he lowers his hands and lets it hit him.

It's a powerful spell, and a clever one, meant to interfere with the flow of the target's mana and redirect its energy to the caster. It's intended to cause physical damage as well as to block spellcasting, and any ordinary mage would likely have been incapacitated by it. But Solas is no ordinary mage. He draws upon sources of power most magisters can only dream of. This one realizes her mistake as soon as her magic clashes with his, but by then it's already too late. Power surges on both sides of the Veil, flowing through him and into her, radiating outward to fill the plaza, and he revels in its barely controlled conflagration.

The magister who cast the spell dies almost instantly, her mind and spirit snuffed out by energies no mortal was meant to channel. The backlash is so strong that its edges scorch the magister Tabris is fighting. He screams in pain, and his guard falters. Tabris sees her opening and takes it. Her knife strikes clean and true again, finding and piercing his heart as it has done to so many other humans. He crumples before he can cast another spell.

 _This fight isn't over yet,_ Solas thinks as he returns his attention to the magister who fell out the window. He appears to have survived both the fall and the mana clash, and is using his staff to push himself back to his feet. Dazed, he spots Solas and lobs a blast of pure force out of the end of the staff. It's an expression of sheer brute force, completely lacking in finesse, but dangerous in the way a wounded animal is dangerous. Solas feels the magic sizzle past him. It isn't strong enough to hurt him - but it's more than enough to hurt Tabris.

She isn't ready to absorb another blow. Her barrier has already melted away in the fight against the mage wielding the spirit blade. The projectile hits her square in the chest and knocks her to the ground. She lies there motionless, not getting up, and Solas feels his heart leap into his throat but he knows he can't stop to see if she has survived it.

The Wolf wakes inside him again. A low growl seeps from his throat as he advances on the last magister with dark power gathering around his arms. The magister scuttles backwards, looking for a way out, but there is none. Solas lays into him with every spell he can summon, far beyond the boundaries of reason or good sense, until nothing remains of him but a pile of greasy ash in a gutter. Then and only then does he collect himself and return his attention to Tabris.

She hasn't moved from the place where she fell. Suddenly he's kneeling beside her but he doesn't remember getting there. His pulse is pounding in his ears as he scans her with magic It's even worse than he feared. The blows she absorbed from the spirit blade were bad enough, and the last magister made things much worse. The inner structures of her body are battered and broken beyond repair. She is clinging to life by the finest of threads. Soon enough it will break. There is nothing he can do to prevent it.

Solas sits back on his heels, breathing heavily. "Think," he says to himself, " _think._ " The strength he took from Mythal has made him astonishingly powerful, but not omnipotent. Healing was never his area of expertise. He can address most injuries to his own body, but he is not sure he can do the same for another. What's more, the fight has drained his reserves, left him weakened and diminished. Even if he had the knowledge of how to bring her back, he is not sure he has the power. It is always more difficult to work magic upon another than to work magic upon oneself. If only she could direct her own healing...

 _You're right, you cannot save her,_ a small voice inside him seems to say. _But what if she could save herself?_

The words Tabris spoke at their first meeting echo in his mind. _I don't want you to free my people for me. I want my people to find the power to free themselves._ During their time together he has come to a greater understanding of her desires. Now the time has come to fulfill them.

Before he can change his mind he tears open a tiny rift in the Veil, centering it above her weakening heart. Then he reaches through the opening and into the Fade, drawing out its energy, directing it into her very soul. He's never done this before and isn't even sure it will work - without Mythal's ill-gotten power, he knows it wouldn't have - but he's out of other ideas. It's the most intimate thing he's ever shared with her, and he hopes that if she lives through this she will not despise him for what he has done to her. He guides the power into her, letting it suffuse her and change her. When the torrent of energy slows to a trickle he smooths over the rip he made, ties off the loose ends of the spell, then sits back and waits with a pit in his stomach

It doesn't take long. Minutes later, Tabris takes a deep and ragged breath and her eyes snap open. They glow as green as veilfire in their sockets. She lets out a guttural noise, half sob, half roar of victory, and levitates several feet off the ground without warning. Solas leaps to his feet in amazement. "Tabris!" he shouts, tugging at the frayed hem of her shirt. " _Vhenan!_ "

When she realizes she's floating, she loses her concentration and tumbles out of the air. Solas catches her and lowers her back to her feet. Amazement fills her face. "What is this?"

"The only way to save your life."

With both hands Tabris grabs the sides of his head, her eyes wild with terror and awe. For a moment he wonders if she's about to snap his neck - but she kisses him instead, a savage thing all probing tongue and clashing teeth. Her newfound magic brushes against his in an exploratory caress, sending shivers through his entire being, and he moans involuntarily at the thought of how many things they haven't explored yet. He wonders what would happen if he let her read the truth of everything he's hidden from the depth of his mind.

She pulls her mouth away from him and grins at the confusion he knows must be written all over his face. "Why did you do it?" she asks.

Words aren't enough. He kisses her again, biting at her neck and the tips of her ears, propelling her backwards through the street until her back bumps up against the wall of a building. He wants nothing more than to take her now, here in the middle of this plaza, surrounded by the bodies of their enemies. She's rolling her hips slowly against his to show how much she wants it too. He begins to cast a concealing illusion around them but realizes immediately that she's already done it. _She's a natural,_ he thinks proudly.

They fumble with each other's belt buckles until he can enter her in one firm and decisive motion. She wraps her legs around his waist and braces her back against a windowsill. "You never answered my question," she grunts in between thrusts.

Solas looks Tabris in the eye and says the first thing that comes to mind. "Because Fen'Harel is coming," he replies. "To break every chain."


End file.
